Challenge Stu

Apparently last year I wrote a long rambling "review of the year" type thing... I'm a bit disappointed in myself for doing that, so massive soz to any of you who may have read it. I feel I should close the year with some sort of blog though, so I am going to write something. It's called "Lots of hills and no hills at all", and it's about two bits of running I did recently. Before I start, I would like to point out a couple of blogs vastly more worthy of your time. The first is Runners against Rubbish , a wonderful little charity aiming to... OK it's me again. But the posts are shorter. The second is a genuine recommendation - Callum Rowlinson. I don't really know Callum, I beat him once and he has subsequently beaten me many more times, but his blog is great. It's mostly about dogs and slightly about running (which he mostly does fast). I enjoy it a lot: https://callumrowlinson.wordpress.com/ Callum and I, apparently deep in prayer, a...

To borrow the words of a fine sportsman of appropriate nationality... "As they say, sometimes you're the hammer, sometimes you're the nail.  I was a cheapy little Ikea one today. It was terrible." So here, in contrast to 2015 , is a blog about this year's Snowdonia trail marathon. The Scott Snowdonia Trail Marathon is a marathon (obviously, although the distance has in the past not always been exactly marathon distance!), starting from Llanberis and visiting Rhyd Ddu, Beddgelert, Nant Gwynant and Pen y Pass before climbing to nearly the top of Snowdon by the Pyg track, then descending on the Llanberis path. I ran the inaugural race in 2015 but missed the race in 2016. Both previous years have experienced very wet weather, so it was a pleasant surprise to see some sunshine on the start line this year. After a surprisingly comfortable night in the back of the Volvo I had some breakfast, registered and collected my number. then caught up with some...

Though there are quite a few of us in Team Accelerate-Scott, it's not often that we're all at the same race. However, this weekend the Accelerate crew descended on Llanberis in substantial numbers: From Accelerate-Scott were Julian, Chris S, Dot and I, from the performance centre Stu H, Col and Chris, and coached runner Lee Walker, all ably supported by Debs, Ben, Chris's wife, Dot's husband and Lorna (and Acer the dog). Those of us running had the choice of two events, the inaugural full or half Snowdonia Trail Marathon. Chris, Lee and I were signed up for the full distance, and everyone else the half. Neither looked easy as both involved climbing to 993m, just below the summit of Snowdon. The marathon did this pretty much at the end, whereas the half-ers would still have another little climb afterwards! After a sunny Saturday we all met up and pitched tents at a campsite rammed with school holiday families. The midges attacked so we all agreed an early ni...